Slow and steady wins the race January 22, 2008
Posted by Al in : bizarre,interesting,personal , trackbackThis story is almost too good to be true, but it’s unbelievable enough to be true and searching the web seems to corroborate it. In 1983 a 61 year old man, Cliff Young, entered the longest ultra-marathon in the world – running 500 miles from Sydney to Melbourne. Nobody believed he stood any chance of finishing the race, yet he went on to win by a 9 hour margin from some of the best endurance athletes in the world, and changed the way competitors would race such events from then on. The only bit that seems too corny to be true is that Cliff gave away all his prizes to other competitors and kids – although he was from the bush I doubt he’d be that naive, and he did money raising for a bird sanctuary which means he could have sold his prizes to help. Still, it’s a fantastic story, and I only hope I can run 100 yards at 61, let alone 500 miles.
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